The Price of Power
by Infinite Nexus
Summary: You have seen it before. Ash starts out his journey differently, becomes a Pokémon master and unlocks his aura abilities. But what if all that power comes at a cost? My revenge on powerful Ash fanfictions.


In one of the private rooms of the Pallet Town hospital, their lay a trainer. A famous trainer, in fact. After all, the man had won every league he had entered from the age of 10 and had taken down multiple villainous organisations. He had trained hundreds of Pokémon through the years and even a few legendaries had gone along with him on his journey. He was a hero, an icon and the first Aura Guardian in 900 years. Not that you could guess that from looking at him now.

Ash Ketchum was only in his mid twenties but his once raven hair had turned into a dull and thin grey. The formally well defined face was now thin and pail to the point where it blended with the crisp white hospital sheets that covered his skeletal body.

His two oldest Pokémon looked over their trainer.

One was a yellow rodent like creature. It had red cheeks, a lightning bolt shaped tail and was the strongest of its species ever observed. It had downed legends and toppled buildings with its devastating electricity but their was nothing the Pikachu could do for its trainer now.

The second Pokémon was a blue dog like creature that was sat, cross legged, on the chair by the bed. He had his eyes closed and seamed unaware of his surroundings but when the door opened he didn't seam to be surprised at all.

"Lucario?" Asked a nurse as he stepped in. The blue Pokémon stood up.

"What is it." The Pokémon responded. His mouth didn't move, but he was able to make his words understood to all around him never the less.

"The Medicham we bought in has finished. He would like to have a word with you."

The Pikachu's head shot up at that statement.

"Bring him in." Lucario responded. The nurse backed out of the room and in walked a grey and red humanoid Pokémon.

"What have you found." Demanded Lucario.

"You might want to sit back down." Said the Medicham. Lucario wordlessly did so as the Medicham looked over the frail human. His eyes glowed an ethereal blue and a moment later he nodded.

"Your trainer is truly extraordinary." He began. "He's been through so much that it was at first hard to pinpoint a reason. We thought that maybe it was his constant training of powerful psychics like Mewtwo that could have done it. There have been reports of some trainers in the past getting overwhelmed and psychologically damaged by intense psychic energy. However, apart from his vitality draining away so quickly your trainer is perfectly healthy. There is nothing wrong with his brain. Certainly none of the signs and damage that psychics can cause. However, there is something else."

Lucario felt his hart jump. For some reason, he felt as if he knew where this conversation was going.

"Are you talking about his training?" He asked. The Medicham nodded.

"When did you meat mr Ketchum?"

Lucario closed his eyes in memory.

"He hatched me." He reminisced. "When I was an egg he received me from his father along with the book that would guide him through his journey. Just after he received Pikachu here I hatched. I knew immediately that he was special. His aura was almost blinding. It stood out among all the other life in the area and even rivalled the legendaries."

"And what do you see now?"

Lucario's voice lowered. "It's barely their. I can hardly see his life through my own and Pikachu's aura."

"Did that change recently?"

"Yes. Only 3 months ago it was normal and over a few weeks it had dropped to be one of the weakest aura signatures I had ever seen."

"You say it was normal. Is that normal for him or normal for most people?"

Lucario took a few moments to reply to that one.

"It wasn't what it once was." He finally admitted. "I didn't notice it as it happened. I thought I was just growing used to it but... Well, I can now see that that wasn't the case."

"That's what I thought." said the Medicham. "The Aura Guardians have been extinct for 900 years. It was hard to find information on them but from what we could discover we found that they never lived too long. If they didn't get killed by battle or disease then the records of them would just stop after about 30 years or so.

Lucario, we think that this is because of their use of aura." Lucario looked down. "Ash Ketchum has been training with aura from the age of nine. Aura is a natural life force, however, and shouldn't be messed around with. Especially not by a child."

"But we all use aura." Pikachu protested, standing up from the bed. "Lucario, me and everyone else."

"But you are all Pokémon. You are designed to weald that power. Mr Ketchum, on the other hand, is a human and the greatest difference between humans and Pokémon is their abilities. They can regenerate from both physical wounds and energy depletion."

"So, what your saying is that when my trainer used his aura, he was draining his life force?"

I'm afraid so." Admitted the Medicham. "It dropped away so suddenly because it was just not enough to sustain itself any more."

The room was silent for a minute after that.

"Is their anything we can do?" Asked Lucario.

"Sorry, but human aura just can't be revitalised that easily. Their just isn't enough of it left."

After it became clear that Lucario wasn't going to respond to that last comment, the Medicham apologised once again and left the room.

Lucario looked down at his trainer. The only sound in the room was the beeping of the drip attached to Ash's hand and Pikachu's stifled sniffles.

"I... I sometimes wonder if he would have just been better off as a normal trainer." The rodent whispered. "I guess we now know."

Lucario couldn't help but agree. Ash Ketchum should have never become an Aura Guardian.

AN

So, I finally got fed up of aura Ash stories. I normally wouldn't write about the anime, but I decided this might be therapeutic.

I hope you enjoyed.


End file.
